For many years, researchers and teachers have highlighted the many striking differences between content area knowledge of teachers and teaching practices of elementary and secondary teachers. In addition, numerous studies have compared the instructional repertories and effectiveness of teachers at the elementary and secondary levels. Researchers and practitioners have also begun to acknowledge the important influence that teachers' beliefs have on different aspects of the teaching/learning process. In this study, the beliefs of pre-service elementary and secondary science teachers before and after a science methods course, and the changes in those beliefs during this time were investigated. The belief structures of the elementary and secondary teachers before and after the methods course were compared and analyzed. Results indicated that: (1) the belief structures of elementary teachers were more simplistic than those of secondary teachers; (2) there was no typical pre-service teacher belief structure; (3) pre-service teachers already possessed some knowledge about teaching and had an organized belief structure regarding teaching when they entered the methods instruction; and (4) the primary area of concern for most teachers centered around students and the second most dominant area of concern centered around the task of teaching. (CW)